No I
by Sirabella
Summary: Small spoilers for "The Internet is Forever." Emily has a severe reaction to watching the live murder broadcast, but in the BAU, there's always the team to fall back on.


For a few moments there was nothing outside her own head. She could only hold on to the toilet rim – obviously quite recently cleaned, thank God – and continue to retch. She knew the team would say, and ten minutes ago, she would have agreed, that they'd seen worse. But it wasn't true. The truth was, they'd _imagined_ worse. What they'd actually seen, to put it bluntly, was roadkill. Aftermath. Bodies bloodied, sliced to bits, and other things less gory but more disturbing in their implications. But none of that was really seeing death.

This had been. Watching death happen. Looking into the eyes of that woman on the screen as she'd had the life slowly strangled out of her. Watching the woman being extinguished, leaving only the empty shell.

Emily gagged again, and suddenly, the world around her flooded back as a pair of hands swept her hair up out of her face and held it securely out of range. She was briefly curious as to the identity of her benefactor, but the curiosity fled as her last meal decided to continue to resurface. She was spared the necessity of looking up.

"It's alright." Hotch's voice was a cool breeze in her ear as her throat burned. "You'll be alright, just let it out."

In her next intermission, Emily managed a small grin. "Can't…very well…keep it in, can I?" The respite ended, and the only answer from above was a soft stroke to the impromptu ponytail.

Finally, it was over. Emily coughed once for good measure and shakily flushed the toilet. "Done."

"Sure?" At her brief nod, the hands in her hair moved to grasp her under the arms and help her to her feet. "Ok, let's get some water in you."

Emily blinked, finally taking in the whole picture. "This is the women's bathroom."

Hotch's face twitched in his own version of a smirk. "Yes, I remember seeing something to that effect on the door when I came in." He steered her out of the stall – she hadn't stopped to lock it on the way in – and let her drape herself over the sink, standing impassively aside as she rinsed, spat, drank, swallowed. "Better?"

"Much. I almost feel human again." The reason she'd lost it in the first place touched down on her conscious mind again as she caught his gaze, half-concerned, half-puzzled, and she swallowed again, keeping down something entirely different this time. "Thanks, by the way" – she gestured vaguely at her head. "My shampoo's back at the hotel."

He gave her his quick, expressive 'just another day at the office' nod. "Anything you want to talk about?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "There's nothing really wrong with me. It's just in my head."

Hotch did almost smile this time. "Considering what we both do for a living, I'd say that makes it worse."

Emily grinned. "Damn. Should have gone with pregnancy, or maybe cancer."

"You still can, if you like. Although, you might find you had more explaining to do, rather than less, with either of the above."

She knew Hotch's deadpan attitude was intended to take the edge off her pain, and she appreciated it, but it wasn't helping enough. Maybe she _should_ just take the leap off a tall cliff and…trust. That was the kicker. "I don't know," she repeated. "Do you…do you remember, a couple years ago, when we had that case in Georgia…Tobias Hankel…?"

Hotch's eyes turned cold with remembrance. "I don't think any of us is likely to forget."

"Right, of course. And after I startled J.J., and she pulled her gun on me, she asked me why none of what we do ever gets to me. Do you remember that?"

Hotch nodded gently, still obviously puzzled. "You said you compartmentalized better than most."

"That's just it," she burst out. "I don't, I realized, I don't. I just… It's weird, isn't it?" She didn't wait for an answer, as she knew he still didn't understand. And no wonder, with this convoluted mess of an explanation, she scolded herself. 'Dry up, Emily, before he has you committed.' "I guess I just don't have much of an imagination. But I'm a good profiler, I can see their motives link up in my mind, somewhere. But then…this happens, and I…I _saw_…"

Hotch's eyes cleared. "You saw this woman die, and on a computer screen, with miles between you, it was real. A crime scene, a gun to your head, those mean less to you; something's already happened that you can't change, or something is about to happen that you can. It's not about imagination, or compassion; you're no less human than the rest of us. Probably more so than some." Emily smiled; Hotch sold himself short sometimes. He did have a sense of humor, it was just…arid, really, and unafraid of self-deprecation. She loved it. "It's about control, Emily. I'm not saying you're a control freak; nothing so neurotic. Just that your pain and empathy manifest themselves in the number of ways you can find to help the victims and the team. And in a situation like this, when you're forced to watch the worst case scenario come to pass, and it's clear there's nothing you can do, that flips that switch inside of you that says 'enough.' Nothing to be ashamed of; not wrong, just different."

Emily stared at him, aghast. "Oh, my God, you're right. I only freak out when there's nothing I can change! That's insane!"

Hotch raised his eyebrows. "As, for instance, when someone tells you that there's nothing to fix, you're just wired that way."

She gave a wet, choked laugh. "For instance. Not sure I'd believe it, though, if it were just 'someone telling me.'" Hotch nodded, acknowledging the compliment and accepting her gratitude. They looked at each other for a minute, both a bit lost in the uncharted territory of Emily Prentiss' vulnerability. Suddenly, she laughed, catching him off guard, if his eyebrows – the one really expressive part of his face – were any indication. She waved a hand, trying to encompass something like the last half hour. "This can't be in your job description."

"Not in so many words," he admitted wryly. "But we all tend to…ad-lib a bit where parameters are concerned, present company not excepted. It's part of what makes us a team."

She smiled, a little proudly. "You know, it's funny; before I started this job, you couldn't have pounded that concept into my head with a hammer and chisel. Not at the FBI."

Hotch pinned her with his best stare, dark eyes fixed and impenetrable, scanning, she felt, straight into her skull and out the other side. Which was why she was completely shocked to receive revelation in the place of inconvenient insight. "If you don't mind, I'd rather not consider open-mindedness in the same breath with my behavior toward you when you first started."

Emily was beginning to wonder when this surreal day would end. In spite of a gut full of nothing but acid and the lasting image of a dying woman's eyes seared into her mind's eye, she was feeling about ten feet tall. Maybe he was doing it on purpose, but then again, did she really care?

Not so much. Then again, they were both sorely in need of a reality check.

"Uh huh, and you had no reason whatsoever to be suspicious of the daughter of such a powerful diplomat popping up out of the blue inside your highly specialized crime unit. I think we're even on that one, considering my little eager beaver act nearly got us both fired." She could see – she didn't really know how – that he was disappointed in the direction this was taking and had something else he still needed to voice. "We both know all this. What's really bugging you?"

"Emily, I think you missed the point." He moved closer and stared even harder; Emily couldn't have moved a muscle if she'd tried. "This is not some delayed-action guilt trip. I'm trying to say…thanks. For showing me…" He clenched his jaw, utterly frustrated with words and feelings, and she was too well frozen with shock to help him out. He managed to continue with his gaze on the wall tile by her right ear. "For showing me that I could still trust someone without subjecting them to some long-term character fitness test to which even I didn't really know the rules. I was suspended, and you were walking away…and I realized…I already trusted you with all of our secrets. You'd already earned and taken everything I or any of the others had to give…and all the time that my head was screaming at me to dig deeper, not to let you in any more than I was forced to…my instincts had already found what I was looking for."

Silence throbbed between them for several minutes while Hotch gathered together his crumbled reserve, and Emily managed to shove down the urge to run. "It wasn't just the work, you know," she said finally. "I was desperate for this chance to put forth all my talents, to prove myself, to do it all the way I was meant to. But truly being part of the team meant a lot. A whole lot."

"I know it," he answered quietly. "So, you got your wish, you're part of us. I still don't know if days like this are the price we pay for where and who we are, or if the team is our consolation prize for what this job does to us."

Emily smiled wryly. "Either way, we get a case, something like this happens, we lose our lunches, we haul each other off the bathroom floor, and then we go back to work and get the bad guy. I think we've reached that last part now."

Hotch cocked his head to the side. "And then what?" he murmured.

Emily thought for a moment. "And then the tequila shots are on me."


End file.
